Getting a Start on the Garden with the First Seed Planting

I have been planting seeds indoors for some time and these plants will be placed outside when the time and temperature is right.  There are some seeds that I don't start indoors and one of those seeds includes corn.  I don't plant them indoors and instead plant them right into the ground.  The temperature has been relatively cool to warm and the soil is warm enough to start planting these seeds right into the garden.

I only planted a short row for now since it is still a little bit early.  This way I will get corn at different times rather than a large harvest at once.  I can enjoy the corn throughout the season without any of them going to waste.







My lettuce plants are doing quite well and will most likely be the first harvest of the season once I pick them.  The first plants that were put into the garden are just about ready and I should be picking them sometime this week as long as the weather cooperates. 

I did plant some more lettuce in the garden.  I still have plants that are still in containers and I think one more planting I should be done with all the transplanting of lettuce.  Right now I planted eight more into the garden.

Thinning Out Spring Crop Sprouts

At the moment the only spring crops I have include lettuce, onions, radishes, peas, spinach, and celery.  The only plants that needed to be thinned out were my peas and radishes.  They grew quite fast and I only planted them in the beginning of April.  Right now was about time to thin them out giving them plenty of room for their roots to spread and grow correctly.

Just some of my radish plants that need to be thinned out before their roots start wrapping around each other and will become much more difficult to remove them.

Here are my radishes once I went through them all and kept just one plant per cluster of sprouts.










My pea plants were done the same way.  The good news about these plants is that their roots do not spread in a large area and I can keep them relatively close together unlike many other plants.

Some of the Last Indoor Planting for 2017

I like to get most of my indoor planting done as soon as possible so when the warmer weather comes I can just plant most of them in the ground for a head start.  I just planted the last of the vegetable seeds for the season with zucchini and pumpkins.  These are the last and are fast growers which makes them perfect to plant them at this time just before May.

 Pumpkin and zucchini seeds are similar because they are both squash plants.

I also wanted to get some more planting done since I had some room left for more pots.  This time I grew some more cucumbers which I can place near my pickle cucumbers when the weather is right.

Three inch peat pots were used for all three seeds today.

Look Some New Sprouts in the Garden

As you know I have planted some seeds of peas, radishes, celery, and spinach a couple of weeks ago right into garden rows.  I am now seeing the first signs of sprouting from both my peas and radishes.  The good weather that has arrived has definitely been helping them in sprouting very soon.

 I will have to start thinning them out real soon, but I just wanted to show you some of the sprouting that is going on within the garden.

Lettuce has also been growing good and a some more potted plants were transplanted into the garden.  I don't like leaving them in pots too long and once they are big enough it is time to set them into the soil in the garden.

Setting My Strawberry Plants in the Garden

It is that time of the season when I need to start planting my strawberry plants.  Normally I would not plant them every year, but this year I wanted to grow a different type of strawberry plant.  I decided on  going for Junebearing plants in order to get strawberries in the beginning of summer.

 I also fitted three more totes to host onion bulbs over the spring and part of summer.  I wanted to grow more onions, but instead of planting them in the ground I wanted to use totes.  Last week I added three more totes to the garden which will grow onions only.

Taking Advantage of Warm Temperatures in the Beginning of April

It’s that time of the year when warmer temperatures will start to arrive and more planting outside will be necessary.  Today was one of those days when onions need to be added to the garden.  I always aim for the beginning of this month to start planting them since they love cool weather.

I also had some lettuce plants that were getting too big for the Styrofoam coffee cups that I had placed them in back in February.  They needed some more space before they went to seed or showed signs of a sickly plant.  I put only four into the garden for now and very soon I will be putting many more once their roots start poking out of the bottom holes.

 

Hardening off plants is the next phase of having plants grown indoors.  Today was warm enough that I could place them outside.  It was not that windy either which made a great day for giving plants some fresh air.